Monday, April 25, 2011

Rayleigh Air Bearing

Air moving at high speeds can cause some neat effects. Jet engines, for example, basically just throw a lot of air really fast in one direction, which causes the plane to move in the opposite direction, because of Newton's second law of motion. Air can also be used as a cushion, like in a hovercraft. Air bearings put that air cushion to work to reduce the friction between two spinning shafts by inducing a levitation effect. The video below shows a demonstration of an old air bearing. Yay!

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